Author Topic: Restoration Difficulty Level (Read 942867 times)

Garry · « **Reply #150 on:** August 22, 2013, 09:37:04 »

That is really bad chroming and I would not accept that at all. They needed to clean the item before plating, something that they appear to have not done properly in the first place. They need to start the whole process again. It looks like something I would have be taking to my chromer in the first place to have done.

Garry

rutger kohler · « **Reply #151 on:** August 22, 2013, 20:36:18 »

Hi Andy, have to agree with Garry, surprised the chromer let it out of his shop like that.

Benz Dr. · « **Reply #152 on:** August 23, 2013, 23:30:54 »

Grill frames are very hard to sort out. Anything you do to fix one area usually results in another area not fitting properly. Not the best job I've seen, but then I've seen worse.

This may not apply to your situation but I've learned that the better the part that's sent out for restoration, the better the results when it comes to chrome plating.

andyburns · « **Reply #153 on:** August 24, 2013, 05:26:15 »

Dr Benz, totally agree with your sentiments. Given the money that has now been spent on that grill I am off the opinion that I would have been better have purchased a brand new one. 9 time out of 10 short cuts on these old girls are disastrous! I am learning quickly

I ended up taking the parts back. Initially they did not want to fix the faults but after a bit of gentle persuasion they relented and all three pieces are now being rectified. I will keep you informed of how I get on. Incidentally I still believe that at almost 700 dollars for the grill the plating should have come back bang on the money.

andyburns · « **Reply #154 on:** August 24, 2013, 05:41:55 »

Yesterday I spent all day sanding again. After a weeks break from it I forgot how terrible it actually is! After 8 hours of it even though I had a face mask on I came home coughing up horrible black muck. Blocked the inside of the bonnet and painted the base and clear. Also scuffed up my newly powder coated rims and blew some 2k etch followed by a liberal dosage of MB180 and finally 2 coats of clear. They look really beautiful and is almost seems a shame to hide all that detail up with hub caps and garnish rings. Now debating on what type of white walls I am going to shoe them with. I kinda like the really fat line 1950's look but cant really afford the dosh to pay for them. I have four brand new kumo's with the thin white wall sitting out the back. They were given to me as matter of fact. I put the same rubber on my 280se. Kinda struggled with them as they arn't exactly what Mercedes would have gone for.

Also picked up my newly ceramic coated original right hand drive factory headers. I am particularly chuffed with them. The coater even took photos for his web site. I was packing myself that something would go wrong with the process or he might loose one. I can even begin to imagine how difficult it would be to replace these with the correct RHD version.

Valvechatter · « **Reply #155 on:** August 24, 2013, 12:00:49 »

Andy,
Those headers do look sweet!
Lin

andyburns · « **Reply #156 on:** August 29, 2013, 06:18:13 »

Have been having a week off the car trying to earn a bit of money... ah to pour right back into my little money pit. Back into it today though. Spent all day in the bead blaster again today. Concentrated on all the pipework in preparation for the electroplaters tomorrow. Very tiring work standing on one foot and operating the air pedal with the other. If you plate a bead blasted surface you end up with a very matt finish so when I got home I used a scotch pad and polished all the pipes to get a better finish with the gold pacifate Also stripped and scrubbed two white wall tyres given to me. Just need another matching set and I will be off and running. White walls in NZ are a ridiculous price, often twice as much as an equivalent black wall. I will just keep an eye out and see if I can make up a matching set.

andyburns · « **Reply #157 on:** August 30, 2013, 19:38:44 »

Moved back to getting the sub frame back in the car today. Spent most of the day pulling down the steering knuckle, checking the king pins, reassembling and then wire brushing the cast iron ready for a thorough lashing of 2k epoxy primer... old chap. Today I am going to combine this paint job with the final block down and top coat of the bonnet. Getting closer to being able to put my paint gun and mask away by the day. Light at the end of the tunnel!

andyburns · « **Reply #158 on:** August 31, 2013, 02:56:01 »

Blew the first two coats of epoxy on all my suspension bit a pieces. Also did the final blocking, masking and painting of the bonnet. Forgot my respirator so feel a bit queezy after sniffing the fumes. Not good for you. Hopefully all going well will be putting my sub frame back in during the next couple of days. The epoxy takes a minimum of 24 hours to cure before recoating with etch and top coat so a couple of days before the big reassemble.

andyburns · « **Reply #159 on:** September 02, 2013, 08:14:26 »

Back in the bead blast cabinet today. Did all my engine bay nuts and bolts and all the aluminium engine components. Have now spent almost 30 hours in the blaster now with probably another 5-10 to go. Well worth the effort though. The inlet manifold was submersed in solvent for 24 hours to pickle out all the grease and oil. Still didn't manage to get absolutely everything out but good enough. Having problems getting the hex plugs out that you can see in the photo. Think I will leave them in an paint them with anticorossive paint instead of getting them electroplated. Has anyone had any experience getting these out?

andyburns · « **Reply #160 on:** September 03, 2013, 06:04:26 »

Look what turned up in the post today. Put a smile on my dial. Quite an amazing little model 1:72 scale about 2/3 the size of a matchbox but much more detail.

andyburns · « **Reply #161 on:** September 06, 2013, 18:18:55 »

Have been working on other things this week so the pagoda has taken a back seat. But back onto it today. Made good traction on the sub frame. Got the worst of it done. Compressing the springs is always a time consuming job if your being safe. I use two high tensile 12mm threaded rods to pull the lower arm back into place. Each side takes about 30 minutes of winding. I think doing this job with the sub frame in the car would be much easier. I am interested to see how other member here tackle this job. Probably a much easier way to do it.

andyburns · « **Reply #162 on:** September 06, 2013, 18:29:05 »

Also picked up some of my chrome plating as well. Second time around they have got it right. Also got them to do several other trim items including my rear vision mirror which would have looked quite manky had I put it back in with all the pitted chrome. They are still working on the grill, its now been about a month they have had it. They are paying much better attention to it this time around. It still in the copper stage and will be another week. Will post some pics when it comes back. Also got back another load of stuff from the electroplaters. They made a few mistakes as well and tried to gold pacifate my zinc fuel lines that run under the car. Zinc and gold pacifate don't mix. Got a terrible reaction so the lot will have to be stripped and done again.

Garry · « **Reply #163 on:** September 06, 2013, 21:46:05 »

The gold pacifate on the engine bay gear looks pretty good. The grills cost about as much as a non OEM replacement to get done here if they need any work at all.

andyburns · « **Reply #164 on:** September 07, 2013, 10:38:41 »

Spent this afternoon finishing off the sub frame. Took quite a while to get all the torque settings right and grease everything. Pretty happy with the result. Still need to concentrate on the sub fame mountings and engine mounts. Dont quite know how to determine if the sub frame mounts should be replaced. Any one got some advice on this. The ones that came out of the car look a bit hard and brittle but dont appear to be collapsed. The engine mounts are easy to pick when they start to perish. The centers collapse in quite an obvious manner. I dont want to blow money unnecessarily but on the other hand know how hard the sub frame mounts will be to change if I make the wrong call. Any advice appreciated.

GGR · « **Reply #165 on:** September 07, 2013, 11:22:50 »

Rubber parts are affected by age. So it is a good idea to replace them all while doing a full restoration like yours. Otherwise you may have to go back and replace them as they may wear rapidly when you start using the car. Additional work won't be worth the savings, especially for the ones which are hard to replace once it is all back in place like the rear end center boot for example. Old subframe mounts, even if they look good, may separate if you leave the car on a lift or stands with the front wheels hanging without supporting the subframe. For the easily accessible ones, I guess you can take a chance if they look good.

Try to replace with quality parts. Some aftermarket rubber parts are absolute crap. I had some bad experience with URO and I'm not the only one.

The w113 subframe mounts are quite expensive. The mount itself is the same as on the 108/109/111 chassis, so you can save quite a lot by reusing your stop plates and bolts.

andyburns · « **Reply #166 on:** September 11, 2013, 01:25:24 »

Have been fitting up all the chrome this week working out what I need to have re-chromed. Decided to pull apart both the door handles and have them done. Quite a fiddly job that I know will take quite a while to put back together. All in all most of my chrome is very good. The bits I am having redone are actually quite good but have a few scratches here and there. Funny the further through these restorations the fussier you get. Sort of a snow ball effect! Going to pick up my grill this afternoon. They have now had it for over a month. Will be very interesting to see how it turned out. Will post some pics tonight for you all.

andyburns · « **Reply #167 on:** September 11, 2013, 06:50:32 »

Went to the chrome platers this afternoon to pick up the grill, checked it before I walked out the door this time. Strange marks on the the top lip that they cant explain. They asked me to leave it with them to 'investigate'. Frustrating!!!!! Spent this morning in the bead blaster with my new rocker cover. Showed up a couple of cracks which needed to be welded. Back into the bead blaster tomorrow after the welds have been completed. The rough cast rocker cover is worth the effort and will give the car the 'early' look. Am interested to know if the smooth cover that came with the car is original or not. Does anyone know when the rough cast covers were phased out?

andyburns · « **Reply #168 on:** September 20, 2013, 06:16:12 »

Have been busy this week working on the brakes and power steering. I have decided to just ignore the potential issues with the W108 power steering arm and just sort any consequences out if they ever occur. I spent ages with a wire brush on the end of a drill taking all the power steer and brake components back to nice shiny steel. The power components have been painted in the good old epoxy 2k primer while I got the brake components ceramic coated to handle the heat. I don't know where it all goes but I have once again run out of epoxy primer and have had to acquire another 4 liters today meaning I have now sunk 12 liters into the car. Probably quite a bit of waste due to the small batches I have been mixing up. Quite often there is a little bit left over which just gets biffed. Also picked up brand new engine mounts. The one under the manifold in my opinion is very hard to get at and its simply not worth the risk of putting old rubber back in.

andyburns · « **Reply #169 on:** September 20, 2013, 06:55:40 »

Has anyone encountered the part I have highlighted in the parts breakdown below. When I stripped the sub frame two strange bolts were floating loose with the frame. I have only just pieced it together and realized they are obviously some sort of engine mount fail safe. The plate seems to sit inside the sub frame and is bolted to the underside of the engine mount? Strange! Would appreciate if someone could confirm. I am deciding on if I should try and refit them. They dont feature on the W108 which has identical mounts. Any advice much appreciated.

andyburns · « **Reply #170 on:** September 21, 2013, 05:42:41 »

Finally got my grill back yesterday after 3 attempts the platers have finally got it right. I really like the look of chrome against the cool shade of MB180. The rear vision mirror came up really nicely as well. Was quite tricky getting it back together. The two clam shells had quite tight tolerances to begin with. I think the plater put on quite a bit of material which made it really tight going back together. Need two more hub caps and I also have a full set.

Garry · « **Reply #171 on:** September 21, 2013, 06:31:44 »

Glad to see they finally got it right for you.

Garry

GGR · « **Reply #172 on:** September 21, 2013, 06:45:24 »

Quote from: andyburns on September 20, 2013, 06:55:40

Has anyone encountered the part I have highlighted in the parts breakdown below. When I stripped the sub frame two strange bolts were floating loose with the frame. I have only just pieced it together and realized they are obviously some sort of engine mount fail safe. The plate seems to sit inside the sub frame and is bolted to the underside of the engine mount? Strange! Would appreciate if someone could confirm. I am deciding on if I should try and refit them. They dont feature on the W108 which has identical mounts. Any advice much appreciated.

Yes, their role is to restrain movement of the engine. People often do without them but some end up with a dent in the hood after going through a pothole. This happened to someone right during the Williamsburg P-50 gathering.

andyburns · « **Reply #173 on:** September 21, 2013, 06:51:35 »

Thanks GGR, that makes sense. I think based on that I will persevere and make an effort to put them back in. Have you fitted them yourself. The only way that I can see to do it is with the springs out of the car. Its seems the only access is through a gap behind the spring. I can get my hand in there but not a spanner. I only have the complete parts for one of them so will need to do a bit of work to either reproduce the bits I am short on. I wonder if they are still available through the factory?

andyburns · « **Reply #174 on:** September 21, 2013, 06:56:12 »

Cheers Garry, I am really relieved. Its not 100% perfect but only 2-3% off. Compared to where it has come from its really a fantastic result. I really cant afford a new one at this point of proceedings. Just been chocking on the cost of a total interior refit. May not be able to stretch for the top of the line 'original' grain leather I had set my heart on.

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Author Topic: Restoration Difficulty Level (Read 942867 times)

Valvechatter